Issues Peculiar to the Disease of Addictions (as presently seen under the auspices of the current psychological/religious paradigm of addictions)

No other disease presently perceived as a disease has the peculiarities listed below. All other diseases bring out a sympathetic and helpful response in those involved with afflicted victims. Only addictions bring out the following responses from affiliated individuals. This is caused by the incorrect and biased psychological/religious (moral) paradigm of addiction etiology as currently is believed. Theory and judgment of addictions and addicts are kept as SUBJECTIVE as possible. Our goal is to ensure and promote uniform OBJECTIVITY. The understanding of the below peculiarities provides much insight into why subjectivity is being maintained in this area of human behavior.

Fear of addicts: Because addictions are closedmindedly perceived as a voluntary and immoral behavior (demonization), those associated with addicts assume addicts have severe character and personality disorders. Past and current addiction education, prevention, and drug-free zoning (drug-free schools, children, neighborhoods, etc.) methods perpetuate this attitude. The general population has this fear.

Hate for addicts: This feeling is most commonly seen in the family members of addicts who have misinterpreted the addict's behavior as purposely damaging, voluntarily irresponsible, and personally distant and narcissistic (blame their own difficulties on the addict's behavior). It is also seen, most incredibly, amongst many recovering addicts who now perceive themselves as redeemed, self-righteous, and "normal" again. Many of these family members and recovering addicts have joined the other side and frequently have become counselors, therapists, or addiction "police" working for the non- and anti-addict world of "normal" people. These are much like the quintessential "uncle tom" among blacks. Out of their own persistent shame and remorse comes, "I'm not really bad like the rest of them. Please accept me back into the normal world. I promise to be good. To demonstrate this to you, I'll be an addict cop for you." These addict-hating family members and ex-addicts don't realize what and why they are doing this (corticolimbic dissociation) and always deny their hate and intense need for societal forgiveness. They believe they are helping. These are the primary (family members) or secondary (ex-addicts) alanonics. They revel in the hate and self-righteousness while running from their personal guilt and shame. These people frequent the world of discipline, therapy, and punishment of addicts,
including policy making. No other people would have the intense (negative) motivation needed for these difficult and distasteful jobs. This all stems from the psychological and (im)moral model of addictions prevalent in our society because of the absence of a valid neurobiological paradigm (as I have set forth in Hypoic's Handbook). These same attitudes are found in fearful members of all ostracized groups throughout history and are due to the pain of ostracism poring forth from their believing in their own immorality and societal rejection. Only a scientifically realistic and accepting addiction paradigm can remove these attitudes. As long as addiction is associated with ostracism, these damaging attitudes and beliefs will prevail. How stupid of us. This same attitude keeps addicts in denial and underground where all the damage is perpetuated and exaggerated.

A recent article in the New York Post by Brad Hamilton, MDS TRY TO HEAL SELVES - WITH DRUGS, exemplifies this unconscious and denied attitude. It starts off with, "New York is home to thousands of junkie doctors." In a companion piece
about his own father, an alcoholic and drug addicted doctor, after showing what a bastard he was, closes the piece with, "I'm not angry at my dad or bitter. He was wrong to have mistreated my mother. He was foolish to have taken so many drugs. He had good intentions. When he died, I couldn't bring myself to cry. Even if there had been some [treatment programs] I doubt my dad would have gone." [That was in 1979. There were many excellent treatment programs. I went to chit-chat to get sober in 1978. Most denial is not conscious, narcissistic, or caused by the enjoyment of the addiction as most people believe, but rather due to the self-stigmatizing effect of the conscious admission of being an addict in a world that despises and ostracizes addicts.] "He never saw anything wrong with taking booze and pills. He was a doctor, after all. They know how to handle it."
No addicted doctor or any other addict feels that way about his addiction dilemma. All addicts are increasingly desperate as their addiction progresses and losses begin to inevitably occur. Those sentences and other attitudes in the article show the author's
disdain for his father.

Here are the articles:

MDS TRY TO HEAL SELVES - WITH DRUGS

By BRAD HAMILTON -

New York is home to thousands of junkie doctors.

At least one out of every 10 physicians licensed in New York state is seriously - and secretly - addicted to drugs or alcohol, experts told The Post. And most continue to practice medicine.

Dr. Anthony Velanti (not his real name) of Brooklyn is one of the handful who have been caught.

It was the blissful smile on his patients' faces that got him hooked. As an anesthesiologist at a prestigious state hospital in Brooklyn in 1991, Velanti's job was to sedate surgery patients with a potent opium drug called fentanyl. Injecting only a small
dose put them under quickly. It also produced a grin so euphoric that Velanti couldn't resist trying some himself. [If this stupid analysis were true then all anesthesiologists would do this. But, they don't. It just looks that way to people who don't want to see the inexorability of addictions only in hypoics. Only hypoic anesthesiologists do it, not "bad" ones. This is the so-called availability theory/argument in the causation of addictions and it is quite false. It has been demonstrated repeatedly that the same percentage of doctors end up as addicts as the general population. Availability only helps push addicts-to-be toward certain addictions, not whether or not they are to be addicts; a fact that addict-haters hate to consider.] So he pocketed a leftover syringe one night and shot a few drops into the veins of his left wrist.

"I got this incredibly warm feeling, a feeling that all was right with the world," he told The Post in a recent interview. "It was just good."

And so began a four-year addiction to the drug, a battle that would eventually cost him his job, his medical license, his marriage and, by Velanti's count, $2 million in lost wages, legal fees and rehab expenses.

Velanti's addiction was discovered after he passed out at the hospital while he was high. His supervisor forced him to get treatment. Although caught, in a sense he was lucky - he didn't die. One anesthesiologist a month dies of an overdose in the United States and Canada, according to addiction specialist Dr. Doug Talbott. Addiction "is a huge occupational hazard," said Talbott, whose Talbott Recovery Center in Atlanta, Ga., has treated more than 4,000 addicted doctors since 1973. "Just as black lung disease is a danger for coal miners, alcohol and substance abuse is a threat to the doctor." [The only realistic statement in the article]

Talbott estimates that up to 19 percent of all doctors are junkies [Talbot would never use the disparaging word "junkies."] - which would mean that as many as 14,000 of the 70,000 licensed physicians in New York state are addicts.

The estimates of other experts are somewhat lower - but no less chilling. They believe that between 10 and 12 percent of all physicians suffer from chemical dependency - about the same percentage as the general population. That translates to at least 7,000 addicted MDs in New York.

"Very few of them are getting disciplined," said Art Levin, director of the Center for Medical Consumers, a nonprofit watchdog group based in Manhattan. "The numbers are flightfully low." [He uses the word, discipline instead of the word helped. See the perspective, as if they are bad boys and girls?]

The state was next to last in the nation for policing its bad [notice the use of the word, bad] doctors in 1991.

It's now cracking down on all violations by MDs - ranging from improper record-keeping to gross incompetence, insurance fraud, sexual assault and drug use - and currently ranks 16th in pulling the licenses of wayward MDs.

Still, it has uncovered only a tiny fraction of its addicted doctors. The state Health Department's Office of Professional Medical Conduct sanctioned a record 366 physicians in 1998 - 11 percent more than the previous year - but only 45 of the licenses yanked were for drug or alcohol offenses.

A look at the cases the state uncovered which are detailed in department records obtained by The Post - shows just how dangerous it can be for patients when doctors get hooked on pills or booze: *Dr. Jeffrey Netter, a Brooklyn family doctor who admitted to
The Post this week he has been addicted to a variety of drugs for 25 years, once put himself into a coma with an accidental overdose. He also continued to practice even after the state suspended him. [The author left out the evidence for the doctor being dangerous except to himself]

(*Not his real name)

Netter had his license revoked permanently in March but only because the medical conduct office learned of his criminal convictions in Nassau County for possession of a controlled substance, driving while intoxicated and driving without a license.

*Dr. Katherine Angeles of Manalapan, N.J., has had her New York medical license revoked.

She was ordered into rehab in 1994 - but a year later was still on the job when she tried repeatedly to insert a major artery line into a patient without using an anesthetic. [Was this due to her addiction, or was she just a reckless and incompetent doctor? They didn't say. They are not the same thing; one of the biased assumptions of this Post article.]

She also made several unsuccessful attempts to insert a pacemaker, then gave up and left her patient for four hours.

There are currently 400 addicted MDs voluntarily enrolled in state-run rehab, according to Terry Bedient, who directs the treatment program for the state Education Department's Committee for Physicians' Health. [He doesn't direct the treatment program for the state education dept. or any one else, but directs the advocacy process and stamp of approval for the State Medical Society, something quite different from the state education dept. which is the licensing administration for NYS; totally unrelated to the Medical Society that is made up of just doctors. Recovering doctors get recovery on their own, he merely approves or disapproves of it. He and the Medical Director ensure SUBJECTIVITY in the assessment process of relicensure, the opposite of Dr. Talbot's and my goal. Mr. Bedient and his group of addict-hating psychiatrists, social workers, and CACs are in addict-hater's heaven working for the CPH. They are in charge of addicted doctors. What could be more fun!? This is the reason I insist in removing alanonics, primary or secondary, from the field of addictions, a place they invariably end up. SEE PSYCH.GIF CARTOON on cartoon page. It conveys the same message and warning. Also see the letter I recently wrote to the Medical Society about this. I have received no response from them about it. The NYS Medical Society has washed its hands of these disgusting addicts. Shame on them.]

The doctors, who are guaranteed anonymity, have their licenses suspended when they enroll, said Bedient. They get them back when they've completed treatment and prove they've been successfully rehabilitated. [This would be nice if true, but it isn't. I've been rehabilitated for 8 documented years while being followed by his group and I have their stamp of approval, but don't have my license. Not because I'm not in good recovery and do everthing they've asked and required me to do, but because I don't feel, think, and believe the way I'm supposed to. Mr. Bedient is actually the thought police besides being the addict police. This is one of the major problems with these people supposedly being on your side. It's not just about being rehabilitated, but also brainwashed, much like the Gulag in Russia. I don't agree with their addiction paradigm, their specific treatment demands, their view of addicts being mentally ill (contrary to all reputable addictionologists including Dr. Talbot) nor with their insistent requirement for REMORSE on my part (for being an addict-having an illness- see Dr. Talbot's requirements for recovery on page 3 of this series of articles. Talbot's a doctor-addictionologist, Bedient is a social worker), nor that I was treated fairly by them (mandated psychotherapy when I didn't need it or want it delayed my approval for 2 years after I was told I had it by my councelor who quit the program because he couldn't stand their tactics). Mr. Bedient sees himself as a helper, but he's a gestapo agent for the other side, making sure of not only rehabilitation and recovery, but also the "proper" thoughts, beliefs, and feelings amongst his flock of hapless doctors. His position would be untenable if it were public, which it isn't, except right here. No other doctors would disclose exactly what I am disclosing because they are intimidated by this powerful and abusive group of addict-haters supposedly working for the recovering doctors. This is the reason I'm publishing this article. The public needs to know their sick doctors, even when better, are being abused in the name of "public safety and quality medicine" by a social worker, what I call "an asshole with power." This article has a lot wrong with it, is dishonest and incorrect besides being written by a biased son of an addict who hates his father. That this article could actually be published is a major symptom of the stigmatization and abuse of addicted doctors.]

"Our mission is to ensure quality medical care," said Bedient. [Is Mr. Bedient a doctor? How would he know what quality medical care is? I think he meant medical care done by doctors not on drugs, a different statement altogether. One of the problems here is that he equates quality medical care with medical care provided by doctors not on drugs, not true. But that is another discussion. He's not a doctor, so he should stick to what he does do, making sure (being an addict policeman) medical care is done by doctors not addicted to drugs. There's plenty of bad medicine done by doctors not on drugs, and he has nothing to do with them. No one seems to care much about them. They are the truely dangerous ones because they are just bad doctors. Addicted doctors are such easy targets. You don't have to show they're incompetent or dangerous, you can just say it.]

Under guidelines of the American Medical Association, doctors are obligated to report any colleague they suspect of abusing drugs or alcohol, but MDs are known to be notorious for hiding their addictions - from other doctors, family members and themselves. [All addicts do this]

"Physicians in general tend to have a narcissistic personality trait, so it's hard for them to admit they have this kind of problem," said Mchelle Rottenstein, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Albert Einstein Medical School. [This generalization is completely meaningless except to a judgemental shrink who is in the midst of stigmatizing doctor addicts. There are plenty of narcissistic nonaddicted doctors.]

She said she treated one doctor who was getting drugs for himself by prescribing them in a patient's name - yet still couldn't accept that he was addicted.

Among the most popular drugs with junkie doctors are opium-derived pain relievers such as Vicodin, along with the various codeine tablets, Darvocet and Percocet.

Those who do go into rehab have a good chance of beating their addictions, according to Alex DeLuca, who runs the Smithers-Trinity Addiction Treatment and Research Center in Midtown. [The word "beating" would never be used by an addictionologist. That's the author's word.]

He says that about 85 percent of MDs who undergo treatment recover fully.

"They're highly motivated," said DeLuca. "They're excellent in treatment. After all, you have leverage. You have something they want - their license." [This is the old carrot-and-stick method of motivation used usually by sadists and manipulators. Merely confronting an addicted doctor that his addiction is known and could be dangerous to himself, his patients, and his family isn't good enough for these people. Why not use a positive, nonmanipulating, and humane reason for helping addicted doctor? Under Talbot's and my nonpunitive program, it would be that way, and I bet addicted doctors would more readily come out of the closet and recover earlier, before being caught by some disaster the present method ensures will happen. One lawyer involved with helping doctors being manipulated in this way calls it, "the atom bomb-on-a-stick method." Can you sense the disdain, control, and power of DeLuca? Another asshole with power.]
End of Article.

BOOZE & PILLS WERE DAD'S PRESCRIIPTION FOR DEATH

By BRAD HAMILTON

WORKING on this story brought back memories of my father, an alcoholic and drug-addicted doctor who died of an apparent overdose.

He was a brilliant physician when he started, joining the staff of Doctors Hospital in northern California as a young man and building a large family practice.

He and my mother also planned and constructed a medical building across from the hospital, where my father and several other MDs had their offices. When I asked how he had spent his day, his reply was always the same: "Stamping out disease."

Though I didn't see him very much because of his work, my dad was good to me as a kid. He showered me and my five brothers and sisters with gifts on Christmas and our birthdays. He got me interested in sports - we went to Candlestick Park regularly for 49ers games and to Game 3 of the 1972 World Series between the Oakland Xs and Cincinnati Reds.

I also went with him on his hospital rounds. One elderly patient told me he thought my dad was the greatest man in the world. He had saved the old man's life.

But alcohol was always a big part of our family life. My dad consumed large amounts of bourbon and let us have sips of his drinks even as little kids. I have a photo of me holding up a can of beer for the camera. I was about 4 years old.

We also had a medicine closet in our house jammed with cardboard boxes. I learned later that they were filled with a variety of potent drugs given to my dad as free samples by salesmen from pharmaceutical companies.

When I was about 10, my dad all but stopped coming home. He was there just once a week, Wednesday, for dinner and on special occasions. I didn't know where he slept or what he did the rest of the time. When he did show up, his face and hands were bloated
and red.

He also became enamored of a consciousness-raising cult called EST, stopped paying income taxes, and fell into depression.

My mother spent late nights with him as he sobbed about his dirt-poor childhood in Wisconsin. He was verbally abusive to her and occasionally to me. He once disciplined me by picking me up by the hair.

He refused to get psychiatric help and eventually my mother divorced him. After that, he floated away from me altogether. Later I discovered that he had been taking Ritalin and Seconal - uppers and downers - for years.

He was found slumped in the shower of his office in 1979. His partner performed an autopsy and declared the cause of death to be a ruptured pancreas.

Without a heavy blow, there is little explanation for a burst pancreas. I suspect my dad overdosed on drugs. His partner was probably protecting a life-insurance claim for us.

I'm not angry at my dad or bitter. He was wrong to have mistreated my mother. He was foolish to have taken so many drugs. But he worked to provide for us. He had good intentions. When he died, however, he was not the same man I knew as a kid. I couldn't
bring myself to cry.

There were virtually no programs for drug-addicted doctors back then. Even if there had been, I doubt my dad would have gone. He never saw anything wrong with taking booze or pills.

He was a doctor, after all. They know how to handle it.

The End

The initial article basically showed how too few of these dangerous doctors are being disciplined by the licensing boards. Nowhere in the article did the author show how his addicted father was dangerous to his patients. He died a lonely and sick death from
pancreatitis although his son still believes it was due to an overdose. More shame.

To the uninitiated eye, these articles seem to be helpful and informative, but are they? My emotional response to them was fury and anger. There was no unbiased information in the entire article except Dr. Talbot's remark. It was all skewed by his hateful bias that is totally not consciously admitted by the author. Most of the "experts" (except Dr. Talbot) interviewed displayed the same damaging attitudes. The author would rather hate his despicable father than admit he was sick and have to forgive him. Only out of Brad's own recovery can realistic forgiveness be obtained. Realistic recovery is quite rare today due to the moralistic paradigm and the absense of a realistic paradigm.

You tell me if this journalist hates his father. You tell me if this journalist is capable of writing an unbiased piece about doctor addicts. I have no doubt, from reading these articles, that Brad is a fairly typical addict-hating son of an addict, spewing this hate in the form of "addiction journalism." I called him and his editor to discuss this issue but received
no return call.

The field of addiction is filled with people like Brad Hamilton. No other disease has the playing field riddled with hateful dying (spiritually) family members and ex-addicts.

Can you imagine someone writing a similar story about his father dying from cancer, diabetes, arthritis, heart disease, or AIDS and getting away with these twisted and hateful attitudes? Only addiction can be written about in this prejudiced, biased, and hateful manner and be viewed as an informative and valid.

More damaging attitudes:

Victims need punishment and discipline - Any other disease victims you know of needs this?

Victims need incarceration -ditto

Victims deserve to be beat up and abused in police departments, hospitals, and mental hospitals -ditto